Audio recorded at Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 50-minute teaching, Kyabje Rinpoche guides practitioners in transforming ordinary activities—eating, sleeping, going, remaining—into enlightenment practice through the awakening heart. He establishes that all action flows from mind; if rooted in care for all sentient beings, even mundane activity becomes a cause for Buddhahood. He illustrates this through Śāntideva, a master whose hidden practice went unrecognized by monks who saw only eating, sleeping, and using the toilet. Rinpoche stresses the awakening heart must be genuine and integrated into the mind—not merely spoken—and must extend impartially to all sentient beings. He teaches practitioners to identify their strongest afflictive emotion and apply its antidote: love to counter anger, impermanence to counter attachment, generosity to counter miserliness. Suited to practitioners already familiar with the awakening heart.
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File metadata (for organising)
File: 1990-05-08 – 11A – KR.mp3
UUID: 5ee81629-9ab1-496e-b0e3-313f0d33136c
Teacher: Kyabje Rinpoche
Collection: Sun Radiance – Thought Transformation
Date: 1990-05-08
Recorded at: Tibetan Buddhist Institute, Adelaide
Words: ~2,686
Yes. We’ll begin when adjust adjusting our motivation. So the the way in which the skillful actions and unskillful actions are engaged in is by means of the three doors. That is the door of the body, speech, mind. Amongst these three, the foundation is the mind itself.
And in dependence upon the skillful quality of the mind, those physical and verbal actions which ensue will also be skillful. And likewise, in dependence upon unskillful quality or state of mind, then those physical and verbal actions will likewise be unskillful. And therefore, since we are seeking to practice the Dharma, and not only the Dharma in general, but amongst the Dharma, the Dharma of the great vehicle, we first have to adjust our mind such that it’s in the motivational state of the awakening heart. And therefore, there upon whatever, we engage in, the listening and explaining will be of the great vehicle. And this is the necessity for developing a proper motivation.
And we’ll spend five minutes developing the awakening heart as our motivation. So we should try to, subdue subdue our distracted mind and bring it to the point of concentration of focus. And beginning with the understanding that for the sake of myself and all sentient beings, that I must eliminate all my faults and bring to consummation all my excellent qualities. And then having brought to consummation all the excellent qualities that I will establish all sentient beings equal to space and complete happiness and eliminate completely their suffering.
And as a means to bring that about, that I am going to practice the great vehicle method of mind training and develop this motivation for listening to the present teaching. So Rinpoche hopes and would have greatly appreciated if during the this three week interval if you had meditated well on the awakening heart and the view. Any hopes that you created a great deal of positive potential? And we had a a very good time in Queensland. The the students, I I appreciate everything that that occurred, and things went went very well.
So in with the respect to the subject of mind training, there are the two overall divisions. The in way of developing the conventional awakening heart and the way of developing the ultimate awakening mind that is the realization of emptiness. So beginning next week, we’ll we’ll commence the explanation of the development of the ultimate awakening mind. So but today, we’re going to finish the remaining few guidelines for mind training that would since they are extremely beneficial for the mind. So the guideline which we’ll we’ll be discussing is transform all into the path of the great vehicle.
Transform all into the path of the great vehicle. In general, there there are four modes of behavior or conduct with respect to physical conduct. So with respect to the these four different types of of ways of physically acting, they would be sleeping. For example, going to sleep at night. Awakening in the morning.
Remaining, staying, and going that we’re always involved in the one of these four activities. So usually, we’re involved in one of these four activities of physical activities, whether it’s sleeping, awakening, staying, or going somewhere. And that normally, usually, these activities are either of an unskillful nature or they’re neutral, unspecified. And in order to let all our actions be transformed into the path to the awakening heart, we should make use of these and not waste them to the since they represent an excellent opportunity for us to act in a very skillful manner. And the way we can do this is first by, developing caring and love.
And by means of this, inducing the awakening heart. The caring and love directed towards all sentient beings. And then with the awakening heart as a motivating force. Then engaging in all four of these types of sleeping, awakening, staying, and going, and they all become transformed into a path of the awakening of the great vehicle. If no matter what we might be doing, whether it’s eating, washing, sleeping, then if we can do all this for sentient beings in a loving, caring manner with the motivation of a awakening heart, then they all become skillful actions.
Whatever we might be doing, whether whether it’s actions of the body or speech, if we do it in a caring, loving manner with the motivation of the awakening heart, then they all become actions of the great vehicle. And that is to say they all become anything be can become a cause for Buddhahood. This is extremely important that, and toward this end, we should try we should make various prayers of aspiration, trying to, again and again, adjust our motivations. Until cyclic existence is emptied. That is to say, until until I achieve Buddhahood.
Constantly committing yourself to benefiting sentient beings through and and praying that may I be able to benefit them through my body and speech and with the motivation of the awakening heart. And previously in in India during during the lifetime of Śāntideva, he was renowned for being even though he was a great master, no one ever recognized this fact, but he was infamous for being known as he who engages merely in the three activities. And what do we mean by he who only engages in the three activities? What are those three activities?
These were eating, sleeping, and going to the toilet. Actual practice of Dharma, in fact he was always practicing even when he laid down. He was not sleeping, he meditated and he was meditating on, for example, the awakening heart. He was practicing generosity and all the other six perfections while he was even laying down. And, you know, these these are all actions of the mind, these qualities.
So during this time that they never saw him engaging in practice. They never saw him meditating, studying, etcetera. And he became, as was mentioned, infamous for being he who only practiced these three activities. And all all of the scholars and the the pandits at that time, wanted to throw him out of the monastery. Yes.
So as a way to humiliate him, he was asked to give a teaching. And they built an extremely high throne for him to give the teaching on. And during the they thought he would be humiliated in giving this teaching. But rather than doing that, as he proceeded through his teaching, coming to the end of the teaching, he began to rise miraculously in the air and began to drift up into space. And he finished the teaching unseen somewhere in space.
And this this teaching was to become later known became known as the Engaging in the Bodhisattva Deeds. Then having seen this, him miraculously ascending into space, they all developed great faith in him, and they pleaded and said, please come stay. Please come back. But he was never seen again. So, you know, these the practice of Buddhadharma is concerned with the mind.
And as as indicated by this, the precious awakening heart, that this practice is one which is developed within one’s own mind through the path through the practice of, reflecting, thinking, contemplation, using one’s mind in this way. And these various prayers of aspiration, the quality reflecting within one’s one’s mind is a way of habituating oneself to the awakening heart. That making such prayers as, May anyone who meets me, anyone who remembers me, or simply is that I may touch with my hand or hears my voice. May all of these beings, may they develop the awakening heart. May they achieve Buddhahood.
Just even, you know, we can this quality of the the mind determining the quality of the action. Even a carpenter who is, who is hammering a nail. If he can do this, it would be a wonderful practice if he could do this with, motivated by the awakening heart and imagining this nail as his own self grasping and smashing it. So this was similar to a practice of the of the previous Kadampa masters who, when they used to pound chili into chili powder, they would imagine it was their self grasping, and they would just grind it to bits. So, you know, whatever we might do, if if it’s motivated by the awakening heart, then it definitely will become skillful.
So everything is dependent upon the mind. So in in training the mind with respect to the awakening heart, we have to have an equanimity or an even mindedness. It cannot be a biased attitude involved. For example, wishing to be free of suffering and to have happiness for yourself will never bring about the awakening mind. Nor will wishing happiness and to be free of suffering those who you hold close, or those that you like.
Only directing this attitude simply toward them only. This will never serve as a means to develop the awakening heart. We have to have direct this attitude of wishing to be free of suffering and to have happiness toward all types of sentient beings in an even minded, unbiased manner. When we say all types of sentient beings, what we mean by types here are the four types of sentient beings by way of birth. There are four types of possible ways of being born.
And the first is birth from womb. And this would include, obviously from humans, but also from, horses, sheep, those who have are carried in the womb and then take birth from that. And then there then there Also, then there would be birth from eggs, and this would include, for example, birds and snakes. And then Birth from heat.
Birth from heat. I I think that’s the that’s the way it’s usually translated. Birth from heat. And this would include, some types of insects. And then the fourth type of birth is spontaneous birth.
And this would include hell beings, hungry ghosts, the various types of gods. For example, the gods of the desire realm, form, and formless realm, and also intermediate beings are all examples of spontaneous birth. So the these types of beings, for example, the gods, etcetera, born from spontaneous birth are not born from either heat or eggs or the womb, but form as if like the clouds in the sky form. We’re looking at. Oh.
Yes. But we might ask with respect to the gods, since they have spontaneous birth, then but still there are sons and daughters of the gods. And how do we determine who are the sons and who are the daughters of which gods? It’s though these the the gods take rebirth and they take rebirth in the, likened to an age of eight years old. From they begin at the end as if they were eight years old.
They are born in the lap of of the the the mother. And therefore, when they’re they appear in the lap of the mother, therefore, that that person becomes their mother. Also, these four ways of being born are applicable to humans. There are humans which are born from heat, egg, womb, and spontaneous. We, for example, were born from the womb.
One master was born from egg. The first beings of the first people of this world were born from were born spontaneously. So there was one monk who was born from they said there was one monk who was born when the heat of the sun when the from the light of the sun heated some semen. And from this, this this particular monk who person who became a monk was born. This was birthed from heat.
So in in the reflecting upon the awakening heart, we are to to take in as our focus all of these beings. Those all beings. That is to say those types who are born from womb, heat, and egg. Excluding none whatsoever. All beings.
May I achieve Buddhahood for the sake of eliminating their suffering, bringing them complete happiness. So in training the mind and the awakening heart, it should not be in the manner as if one were going to visit a, a temple and which had inside of which were many different, deities depicted. And simply one one walks around enumerating, each of the deities as if they were watching a show. You know, this is this is, Chakrasamvara. This is Tārā.
This is Hayagrīva. This is Chenrezig. And just simply pointing out as a point of information, as a guide would, that this is this. This is this is this. There’s no mixing of the mind.
The mind is unmoved by simply pointing out this display. That what we have, there’s no power in this way of, of working. That we want to actually, in reflecting upon the awakening heart, to mix our mind with it. It has to be integrated. It has to some way move our mind.
Not simply be an object of our attention. It not something which is being looked at as interesting. Yes. So initially, we don’t have the awakening mind. It’s simply not there.
We can Though the mind isn’t there presently, this entity of mind where it is not present can be transformed into the nature of the awakening heart. And so it’s not something that simply comes out from our mouth. It has to be an integral part of our mind. Simply speaking about it from one’s mouth will not cause it to be generated within one’s mind. One has to reflect upon it in such a way that one’s mind is touched or or it’s moved and bringing about some kind of transformation or change.
It shouldn’t be in as in as in the case where we observe are observing a stranger. That is to say, someone we neither hold close or hold at a distance, but someone we feel neutral toward. And this stranger is very ill, very sick. And one thinks one one would say, oh, that’s that’s too bad. That’s that’s really a shame.
And but the mind is not moved. It’s just something that’s coming from one’s mouth. But if the object where we were observing was someone you you loved a great deal, you cared about for you for example, your child, and they were undergoing this same illness, then the mind would be completely would be tremendously moved by this. And one would have great tremendous compassion arising. One would as if feel that pain in oneself.
So then the the next guideline is initially purify whichever is gross, coarse. Yes. If someone for example, what we mean by coarse when it says initially purify whichever is gross or coarse, if someone were extremely agitated and they were had great anger, then the this great anger would be the afflictive emotion which was course. So it would be that afflictive emotion which we are are most often involved in. That which is the strongest afflictive emotion.
That would be what we mean by course. And this would be the first afflictive emotion that we should mainly be concerned with. For example, in the case of anger, we should look, I mean applying, meditating on the antidotes to anger, looking at all the faults of anger and developing the quality of love. And this would be the one’s root practice would be attacking this the most the coarsest afflictive emotion. On the other hand, it’s said that if we aren’t a very angry person, but we have a lot of attachment, then the main direction of our meditation should be in applying the antidote to attachment.
On the other hand, if if our most gross afflictive emotion were miserliness, that is we’re not willing to give anything. We don’t give anything to the Three Jewels. We don’t give anything sentient beings. And we have to, direct our meditation at miserliness, at the antidotes to towards that thinking about, for example, all of the benefits of generosity.